Advice for Daughters
by Farla
Summary: The thing you have to remember is that it's legal. When he put the ring on my finger and said the words I became, in the eyes of the law, his wife. It doesn't matter what came before.
1. Chapter 1

I haven't read Fever, so this is based entirely off Wither.

* * *

o

The thing you have to remember is that it's legal. When he put the ring on my finger and said the words I became, in the eyes of the law, his wife. It doesn't matter what came before.

o

When I woke up all I knew was something was howling in another room. Whatever they'd used to knock us out kept me from waking up all the way, and all I could think was it sounded like the dog had, caught in the steel-jaw trap. I thought of walking into the other room, and it was there, matted cream-yellow fur, tiny drops of blood splattering as it tried to pull away from the pain. Mom had taken the bat. I heard it hit and the wailing stopped. But then it started again, a soft whimper. It hadn't been killed right, not like when Mom did it.

You have to do it right. She'd given me the bat afterward. She made me hit the body in the same place she had, see the skull splinter further and bits splash.

"You have to do it right," she said. "If you don't know what you're doing, if you get scared or don't hit hard enough, it just makes it worse. Swing with all your force, right into the head." And I did but the whimper wouldn't stop. I realized I wasn't really hitting anything, just dreaming of it, because the dog was in the other room and I was still there in the bed. I had to get there first.

I got up. I wasn't wearing anything, so I pulled the sheet along with me, and I tried to open the door. The knob turned but it wouldn't open. I kept trying until I was sobbing, and then I let go of the sheet and pounded with both hands because I could still hear the dog dying.

The door opened. It was an old woman, a silver-haired real first generation adult. "Calm down," she said.

"The dog," I said. "I need to get to the dog."

"There isn't any dog here."

"It's in the other room," I told her. "I can hear it." I started to cry again. "It went into the trap."

"Shhh. There's no dog there." She pulled the sheet back around me and let me take a step out, holding onto my arm and shoulder firmly so I couldn't go anywhere she didn't want. "This is the wives' floor. These are all your rooms. Now stop making a fuss, you'll upset the others."

"But the dog," I said. "It's right there, I can hear it."

"That's just -" She shook her head. She pulled the lock free and opened the door for me. The girl had her arms tight across her belly, under swelled breasts that seemed to barely fit her frame, and her face glistened with tears. Then the woman pulled the door shut again. "See? There's no dog. Nothing you need to worry about." She patted my shoulder twice, turned me around and guided me back into the room.

"She'll stay quiet most of the time," the woman said. "But she has fits sometimes. She's in a snit about all of you, I'm sure. Wanted to stay the only one here."

Then she told me to lie down and go to sleep again.

So it's because of me they started calling her that sometimes.

o

Delores had skin as white as a mushroom. Her father was first generation. He'd taught her about the world because he didn't dare show it to her, like that would be good enough. She hadn't been on her own a month before they got her. I could have told him as much.

Mom said the first generation never realized they were mortal. They never understood they could die too. It's why they kept having us, they never worried about what happened after they were gone.

Delores thought that if only she could go to the kitchens she could escape. If only they opened the windows she could escape. If only they let her go to a party she could escape. If only she could be first wife she could escape.

She hated me a lot, for having those things.

o

No one would tell us exactly what the first girl had done or what her name had been before they started to call her that. When I kept asking, he yelled and she came over with her eyes down. He repeated it, said, "And that's your name, isn't it?" and she nodded. "That's all she's worth," he said. "She should be grateful he kept her at all after what she did."

That wasn't even accurate. She had a mouth too.

o

You could tell Sapphire had been loved.

She was twelve but so well fed she looked three years older, with endless black hair. When the workers came to put out names above our doors, she said she wanted to write it herself. S-A-P-P-H-I-R-E, she'd written, in letters that flowed like spilled water, the sort of fancy writing you only see on the cover of old books. It was a whole other alphabet, cursive, and she knew every letter by heart, when only Delores could even write the first set easily. She wrote our names for us when we asked, her hand flying effortlessly through the strokes, and then she offered to write whatever the first girl's name was too if she'd come out and meet us, but the door had stayed shut.

The morning after it happened, she jumped down the elevator shaft.

I did my best to be consoling. "She just wanted to explore," I said, stoking. "She wasn't very bright. She had no idea how dangerous it was. She didn't even scream, dear, she didn't know what was happening. It was an accident. You mustn't blame yourself. No one would have expected it to happen." They put in a grating across the doors on that floor anyway. As well as madness, wives are prone to clumsiness.

So I never found out why Sapphire was there, how they'd stolen her when she'd had people who had protected her from everything. But everyone dies. Maybe her family was gone too, maybe she'd wandered out into the streets, vulnerable as a baby bird, and walked right into the Gatherer's open hand when they came to scoop her up.

She hadn't even known to scream.


	2. Chapter 2

The thing you have to remember is that no one cares about bodies. They didn't care when ours were taken and they didn't care when the others were left on the side of the road to cook in the sun. He could have cut me apart if he wanted to. Taken my hands, taken my feet, taken my eyes and ears and tongue. No one will ever wonder what happened to someone. You can't commit a crime here.

o

When I got up one morning Delores had left a piece of paper at my door.

YOU LIKE HIM YOU LIKE IT  
WHORE

I shredded it carefully and flushed it. There was nothing wrong with that, it was what a good wife should do. You shouldn't leave anything upsetting out. After, when we three were alone again, I wrote IT HAS TO BE SOMEONE DOESNT IT and slid it under her door, because a good wife also reminds her fellow wives not to be jealous about who's favored.

o

They told us we would be like sisters and I couldn't stop the laugh.

"I always wanted sisters," I said to cover it.

Opal, Rohan, Sara, Candy, Ash, Lyrial, Christy, Frost, Yarrow, Bobie, Pearl, Jane.

I smiled like they was nothing compared to child-wives who didn't know what a sister was. It's important when you smile to move the skin around your eyes right. Otherwise it looks fake.

o

One afternoon the birds started crying outside, so Mom went out to see what was wrong. Birds are smart, after all, and they see everything first.

There was a little bird on the ground, still. Mom pointed at the birds above. "They're calling to it," she explained, "they don't want to believe it's dead yet." She picked it up. "But one day they'd have died and then who would take care of it? The first generations don't know how lucky they are."

o

I didn't have very long.

o

Delores stopped talking completely after we met the first girl. It didn't matter for the wedding. You don't say a word there.

No one buys a wife with any deformities. So from the start, we knew she hadn't been like that before coming here.

Maybe it was nerves, or maybe Delores thought it was better to stay silent on her own, before she said the wrong thing too and they made her. She didn't tell me and I didn't ask. No one thought much of it. That's just how wives are.

It worked out well for me. I only had to ask and I was given a card, so I could go down to the kitchen or other floors whenever I liked, for all the conversation I couldn't have during the day. I was the only one of us who could or would speak at dinner, so it was easy to be the most charming.

o

"I know you want another baby," I said, pulling closer. "But I can do that for you. I'm not too old, am I? I'm just eighteen, I can still give you a son. I can."

"It would be wonderful. Our baby, not Dog's or boring Delores'."

o

A lot of first generations became doctors. They like to investigate things. Their children never are. It's not something they ever need to learn, not when their parents are there.

Mom said, the first generation don't think about what their children would do without them. When you think about things like that, you have to do things you don't want to, and the first generation never did anything they didn't want to.

o

I COULD IF YOU TOLD HIM TO TAKE ME TO THE PARTY TOO

I told her a girl had thought that. "She was prettier than both of us, and when the guard caught her trying to escape she said she'd do anything if only he let her go. And she did, and then he took her back afterward."

YOU'RE LYING

Of course I was. Nobody who goes to parties would think that would work. But there was no explaining that to Delores.

o

The silver-haired woman liked to talk to me when she wasn't busy with work. She was relieved one of us was being a proper wife.

"You're so good for him," she told me. She offered me candy and sat with me on the couch and told me things she thought would help. "He'd been so unhappy. He's been through so much, you know." She asked me to think of her like a mother and patted my arm.

If you get an advantage like that, use it. It's not like they're people.

o

The first girl followed us around, like she couldn't stand to be alone. Sometimes I'd look up to see her standing silently at the threshold of my room. The nights Delores slept outside of her room she'd sometimes sleep on the chair next to her. Once I woke up and opened my door to find her curled up on the floor.

She still disappeared into her room whenever others came up, though.

"Stop keeping your door closed," I told her finally. "You're just making things worse for yourself."

She just started crying again. I hit her. "Stop it! Stop acting like what matters is if we see you!"

That's what you get being raised by the same men who sell you. I'd be as stupid as she was, if I'd been left in the orphanage.

o

When it happens, be presentable. Don't fight. Smile a little. It's better to be picked.

o

"She doesn't deserve someone as good as you."

"It's like they say," I said. "There's no such thing as a victimless crime, is there? Every crime has a victim. Delores didn't think of how it'd hurt you, finding out she'd tried something like that. She just doesn't think. She's terrible."

"You're right, you're right."

"No, I don't mind having someone else around keeping watch. I hope she won't, but you're right, as long as there's still sheets around she might try again. She really doesn't think."

"How can you even ask that? Of course I'd never do anything like that. I'd never want to leave you."

o

I went over to the intercom. "I don't mean to complain," I said, "but how are we supposed to eat this lovely steak without steak knives? Please don't tell me we aren't allowed knives, none of us even know how to use those sorts of thing and I swear, I'll keep an eye out for _someone_ thinking it's a good idea to try."

"There aren't knives with it?"

"Just a butter knife. I'm not supposed to use that, am I? It can barely cut the butter!"

I heard a smack, a child's yelp.

"No," the cook said sourly, "you're not. He must not have been paying attention. I'll send him back up with some immediately."

o

I love you.

o

Sometimes the first girl came over to hold my hand when I stood at the elevator and we'd go down together. If I walked around the gardens, she'd follow right at my heels like she was scared of getting lost, but she always knew the way back. She must have had her own passcard once. Or maybe there had been other girls she followed out. Wives were usually bought in bunches, after all.

Delores wanted a card of her own, or to go with me. I could at least ask, she insisted.

Of course I always said no.

o

I wish it wasn't necessary.

But thinking a parent can protect you is the folly of the first generation. A mother prepares you for when she's gone.

o

It's important to be enthusiastic.

o

"Do you worry I'll get out if you don't keep watch on me, or just that I'd leave you behind?" I asked by the maze of hedges. I didn't mean it seriously, but the first girl's face twisted up and she yanked my hand back toward the house, digging her heels into the grass.

o

There's no such thing as a victimless crime. If there isn't a victim, it isn't a crime.

o

WHY'D YOU TELL HIM YOU WERE JEALOUS?

"Because I'm older," I said. It didn't mean anything to her, but I couldn't very well explain. You can't trust people in the first place if they don't understand things like that.

BECAUSE YOU'RE A SLUT  
THAT'S WHY YOU DON'T ASK HIM TO LET YOU GO

Delores got the idea somehow that first wives could ask that. It wasn't that she thought it would work. It was that she thought it could and that was enough.

"What do you care?" I said. "You want to get away so badly and where would you even go?"

SOMEWHERE HE ISN'T  
I HATE HIM YOU CAN HAVE HIM YOU DON'T NEED TO BE JEALOUS

"You'd be caught and end up another place just like here," I said. "But maybe that's what you want." The way people look at you, like the words they say, those things don't matter. It's important to remember that. "A new husband who'll start fucking you again. You miss that?"

She shoved me off the chair I was sitting on and ran to her room to cry.

Those kind of things don't matter. What matters is being older.

o

"I could never afford to have a baby, before," I said, eyes down. It was such a stupid question. "But I always wanted to," I said. "I always wanted to be a mother." It's almost the truth, for once.

o

The first girl wouldn't tell anyone what had happened before. Maybe she was afraid they'd slice her fingers too, if she wrote. She wouldn't even tell us what her name was.

When I had to refer to her I called her Dog.

HOW CAN YOU BE PROUD OF THAT?

Dog wasn't even that bad. It was better than the alternative. What else was I supposed to call her?

Delores wrote, TELL US YOUR NAME!

Delores kept insisting as the girl shook her head, until finally the girl teared up and wrote the word they called her, then hid in her room. The only letter she could form properly was the C, the rest so rough they were almost illegible. Orphanages don't teach much writing. Delores had stared down at it scrawled across the paper and shuddered.

They said she was fourteen. "Ancient in dog years," the silver-haired woman said with a laugh. She probably was.

o

Delores was never competition. She couldn't even stay in bed afterward. She'd lie awake and crawl out to sleep on the couch in the library, and sometimes she'd even cry. The thing with the sheets just cemented that.

I mean, what sort of a person can't even tie a working noose?


	3. Chapter 3

The thing you have to remember is it's not that wives don't inherit. It's just he'll outlive you.

o

The first girl grabbed my hand one day, tugged me into the empty library where she'd left an encyclopedia open. She pointed to the bright, glossy picture of a lily, to herself, then back again at the name she'd chosen, then stared at me, her big brown eyes hopeful.

It's only really a secret if you never tell anyone.

But.

Sapphire hadn't even tried to scream. Like she'd thought I would have _helped_

And I could say this wasn't just for me, but just because I'd done my best didn't mean nothing else had happened, that this wasn't the pointless circling of a bird. And a girl can't be too persuasive a tattle-tale with her tongue cut, and there was no one to overhear me, alone in the library. I whispered into her ear.

"Do you understand, Dog?" I said.

o

You can't actually escape through the windows. They were at a height where jumping could kill you but would probably only cripple. All the nearby trees had been cut down, so there was no hope of climbing.

I don't know if they were locked to distract wives like Delores with plans of opening them, or if it was a punishment. A reminder that air was a privilege here.

o

There is no revenge. Eat the words in your mouth rather than speak them, let them burn in your stomach for strength. What happens here is like a river flooding, a wall falling. You'd do better to scream at the thunder. There is nothing in them to hear you.

o

Delores started eyeing one of the men. HE'S NOT A BAD PERSON, she wrote. Like he'd actually let her go if he liked her. That's not what men are.

The first girl just went into her room and came out right after him. The elevator doors closed and she spat it into Delores' lap.

That's what men are.

Afterward, the girl wanted me to tell her what went wrong, why Delores just shoved her aside to cry. She pawed through Delores' discarded notebook, pointing to the words she wanted.

He's a slut too.

I said, "It doesn't work like that."

It was with me that makes him a slut like me.

When I didn't say anything she pointed to the words again, desperately. It was with me that makes him a slut like me. It was with me that makes him a slut like me. She flipped to the newest page, A bad person.

I said, "She thinks you stole him. But she'll stay away from him now."

Do you understand? It'll be people like this.

o

You don't help them. You smile and you speak politely and you go down on your knees if you need to.

You don't help them. It doesn't matter what they offer. If you help monsters, then monsters will be all that's left.

o

After catching a dog, Mom always checked the bodies. She showed me how.

"This one's a boy," she said. "If it's a girl, you check to see if she was nursing. Nursing means puppies."

You have to start searching immediately, because it takes a while, but it's not that big of a loss. Puppy fur is a lot nicer than dog fur, even if there isn't much meat on them. They're a lot easier to kill, too. Mom would get a bucket of water and I'd hold their heads under. They barely even struggled.

Sometimes the puppies and dog came together. She'd wait to make sure they were dead before cutting open the belly.

"It's a tragedy," Mom would say, "when children outlive their parents."

o

I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU CAN STAND IT.

I'd been lying across the library couch on my belly when Delores came over to push that in my face. I sat up. This wasn't the sort of conversation to have if you can't keep an eye on the surroundings. "It's because you were a virgin," I said. "Vaccination."

Delores didn't know what that was. I was surprised at first. But first generations just like to talk about the pretty parts of how things used to be. "Mom said that before the first generations, back when people would get sick from all sorts of things, you would get a shot of a disease and get a little sick from that, and it meant you wouldn't get really sick later."

THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE.

I tried, "It's like eating spicy food to get used to it."

She considered that and nodded uncertainly, then seemed to remember what we'd been talking about. She looked disgusted. YOUR MOM SOLD YOU?

"It wasn't like that," I said.

I could see her writing MY DAD SAID and I yanked the pad out of her hand. "And now you're here and what did he say about that?" I snapped.

Don't get taken by Gatherers. That's the most the first generations tell their children.

o

I didn't know, not until after Sapphire was dead. I went to her room, pulled off the blankets to see the sheet.

Even if you didn't think screaming would work, you'd still try, wouldn't you?

You'd only stay quiet if you thought it'd be even worse if anyone else heard you.

(The doors don't lock on the inside. Cry. Wail. Say you're jealous, be jealous and angry and hurt and say don't you love me I thought you loved me aren't I better than she is she doesn't love you like I do aren't I prettier than she is she doesn't deserve you I can give you a baby don't you want that don't you love me? Screw in her bed if you have to. They aren't like you.)

o

"Well of course she wanted it in the end," I said. "All women want a baby."

"Oh yes. Every woman wants her own child." I sighed. "It's just so hard not to be able to that they try to convince themselves they don't, and sometimes they try so hard they don't even realize it's all just pretending."

They check for things like signs of pregnancy. Acted like it was some mystery or miracle I'd never given birth. That's not where babies come from. Babies come from orphanages.

You get your period at thirteen or fourteen. A year for the pregnancy. You'll be dead before she's six.

The girls taught in the orphanages are told that this isn't a decision, it's just how things happen. They have them, they die, their children go to the orphanages.

Being a mother has nothing to do with that. It's about taking care of someone younger than you because someone has to, protecting her while you can and teaching her for when you can't.

You can get a child more easily than you can get a wife. You don't even have to pay. Mom didn't. I didn't. But it's not like they can understand something like that. All that matters to them is blood.

Love is caring about someone after you're dead.

"I know." I pressed closer. "Sometimes I can't believe any man could put up with us." Rested my head. "Let alone someone like you. Even now, the idea you love us, that you really wanted us as your wives, it's unbelievable."

A monster is someone who sees a dog howl and thrash in the trap and says I love you so much.

"Me too."

o

It's sad when we kill dogs and cats and birds and rats. Mom said people used to keep them in their houses and no one ate meat and all the clothes were made of plants and plastic and girls had brothers as well as sisters, but we can't do that any more. When it's dogs or people, you have to pick people. You do what you can and try to kill cleanly.

It's the same with men.

o

I looked at every drawing and listened earnestly and made sure not to say all the wrong things.

Like, "Why don't you draw here? Then you wouldn't have to wonder how things went bad."

Like, "Did she cry?"

Don't think like that.

Don't think.

o

For most of it I didn't even need to talk at all, just sit there and be comforting. I said not to blame the staff, eventually, and without much force.

"You can't prevent everything," I said. "Not even your father could, so don't blame yourself."

"He probably didn't even know what happened," I said, "before he died."

o

Dogs have strong jaws. They're cautious and fast and smart. Puppies don't even know to be afraid.

o

The first part was the trickier bit.

I made sure I had excuses ready, of course. You want to play up weakness and vanity - that of course you'd never want anyone else, that of course you were too scared to fight back, that you're ashamed and filthy and hate yourself. But if things go well you'll never have to worry about it. If you're lucky, all the work of hiding it will be done for you. That's how affairs work, especially within a family.

Don't do it the first time, of course. Get used to everything. And make sure you know what you're doing. You can't go halfway.

An accident is best, but who has the luxury of time? Knives are reliable.

I stripped the room afterward of anything that shined. It gives a ready explanation. There wasn't any worry they'd search my room. Wives don't need to steal anything.

o

Wives inherit, you see. Everything that's here is already ours. We're the richest prisoners there are.

o

Swing with all your force, right into the head.

o

"Look, look at this, there's a bird's nest right under the window."

"Of course the screen is open. I told you, the nest's under the window, I had to open it to see."

"Oh, don't yell at anyone, it doesn't matter, you know I'd never jump. Come here, come here. Just lean out and you'll see the eggs."


End file.
